Sixteen suspected members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood (MB) were apprehended by security forces on Tuesday, over cooperating and plotting with their fugitive leaders to carry out “hostile attacks,” against police and armed forces, according to the Ministry of Interior.

The police managed to thwart a plot set by the outlawed MB aiming to harm Egypt’s national security and jeopardise the country’s stability, the ministry revealed.

The National Security Agency foiled a plot by the group fugitive leaders in Turkey which included a series of “hostile attacks against police, armed forces, and vital installations intending to spread chaos inside the country in an attempt to return to the political scene,” the ministry continued.

Intelligence revealed that the plot is based on creating three secret networks: Smuggling foreign currencies outside the country, smuggling wanted MB members to European countries via Turkey, and providing MB members residing in Egypt with financial support to carry out hostile attacks,” the ministry pointed out.

Foreign and local currencies, passports, documents, including the cell’s plot were confiscated, the ministry added.

Egyptian authorities have accused the Brotherhood of inciting violence in the country after the ouster of Islamist former President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, who died in court in June this year.

The Brotherhood is already considered an “outlawed” group in Egypt and other allied countries, such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

In April 2018, the Cairo Criminal Court ordered to list the group on the terrorism list, with another 1,529 people, including Morsi, and other top Brotherhood leaders on the terrorist list.